More Gloom in Venture-Capital Land — Silicon Valley venture capitalists last week declared that the financial downturn had reached tech's shores. Now their gloomy outlook is even more official. — In a study released Wednesday by the University of San Francisco, Mark Cannice …

Dark times for Web ads: Analysts cut forecasts — Given the day-to-day changes in the world's economic fortunes, it's surprising that analysts are willing to make any forecasts at all, but among those who do, the news isn't sunny. — In the Internet sector, nobody is backing away …

Facebook Announces 25 New fbFund Recipients — Today, Facebook named the 25 new recipients of the latest fbFund funding cycle. From a pool of over 600 applicants, fbFund awarded 25 $25,000 no-strings attached grants. Each first round submission was reviewed by an investment commitment comprised …

The new MacBooks: Beauty more than skin deep — I couldn't be at the Tuesday morning Apple launch event for the new MacBook and MacBook Pro systems, but I've had a chance to review the announcements. — Normally I focus on the technology in new products, but this time …

Firefox 3.1 raises the browser bar ... again — Competition is a good thing, and the way that Mozilla's Firefox and Google's Chrome have re-invigorated browser development will mean good a better web experience all round. — Let's be honest, Internet Explorer never really offered Firefox much of a challenge.

Adobe Adds Dynamic Streaming and More to Flash Player — Adobe on Wednesday will launch Flash Player 10, the latest in its ubiquitous 13-year-old line of multimedia plug-ins. For online video watchers, one big improvement is dynamic streaming, which will automatically shift bitrates as media …

HTC G1 already shipping, many to be delivered by Friday — T-Mobile customers, we hope you're ready for some solid Android love. Word on the street is that Santa will be showing up a bit early for many people who pre-ordered the HTC G1. In fact, several people have reported their handsets …

MAMA — MAMA: What is the Web made of? — The Web has search engines—many of them. However, they are typically concerned only with the text content of a Web page. What about a search engine for a Web page's structure? Say you want to find a sampling of Web pages that have more than 100 hyperlinks …

Microsoft survey hints at Instant On OS concept — Hmm, what have we here? A recent Microsoft survey sent out to select users has us wondering what on Earth the mega-corp is planning to do next, and judging by the looks of things, it has everything to do with Instant On.

Another Google content play — Internet titan hopes to make a splash with ‘Poptub’ — Google is mounting another experiment in content distribution that might be even more ambitious than its recent launch of original animation from “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane.

YouTube rejects McCain request for DMCA takedown fix — YouTube has rejected a request from John McCain's presidential campaign for a legal review of political videos that are the subject of deletion requests. — The Google-owned company said Tuesday evening in a response to McCain's organization …

SAP's Big Freeze — Business-software giant SAP is freezing costs. — SAP announced last week that its revenue for the quarter would fall short of its guidance due to a sudden drop in orders at the end of September. That sent the company into cost-cutting mode, as outlined …

Facebook hosts 10 billion photos — Facebook might not be a photo-sharing site, per se, but there are a heck of a lot of pictures uploaded to it. — On Tuesday night, engineer Doug Beaver wrote a blog post announcing that the total count of photos on the site now stands at about 10 billion.

Hands on: Mint.com vs. Quicken Online — Online financial organization have just grown more robust as Mint.com and offline incumbent Quicken both introduced new features to their web-based products. Since Mint.com and Quicken Online have similar purposes and functionality in mind …

Twitter accidentally reveals search integration? — Twitter Search integration? — (Credit: Twitter on Get Satisfaction) — We've assumed that Twitter would be integrating Twitter Search (formerly Summize) into the main site for awhile now. It seems that Twitter has accidentally confirmed this integration.

Computer error behind Qantas midair drama — Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. — The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series …

Nokia's Comes With Music Service — Nokia's new all-you-can-download music subscription service packaged with its mobile phones is a compelling offering that could pose some serious competition to Apple's iTunes store. — The service, called Comes With Music, launches on Thursday in the U.K …

NBC Local's new portals a good start, but... Media companies are famous for copying, and I fully expect that the announcement by NBC this week that they are shifting from “adjunct” station websites to community information portals will soon become the la mode du jour of the whole industry.